U.S. Relations With the People's Republic of China (2008)

U.S. Department of State

President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)

Remarks to...
Washington, DC
December 1, 2008
2:00P.M. EST

MODERATOR: Good afternoon. As this is World AIDS Day, we are very pleased to have the Deputy Coordinator of the U.S. Global AIDS Office, Ms. Michele Moloney -- did I --

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QUESTION: Hyung Chui with Munhwa Daily, a leading Korean paper. I think the HIV project has shown the exemplary global leadership of the United States. I would like to appreciate your great initiative. I wonder if Korea or Japan and China notice in Asian countries which were -- have been regarded as a safer region relatively, so what kind of efforts of global partnership were supposed to do to provide with your great initiative?

MS. MOLONEY-KITTS: Thank you for that. And I maybe heard two questions, and I might try to answer both. The first was: How do we partner with countries like China, Japan and Korea, and the second might have to do with epidemics in Asia. So on the first, we definitely view our international donors and certainly Japan and China and Korea as very important partners in the fight. United States Government resources are not only provided on a bilateral basis for the fight against AIDS, but we also support multilateral institutions. And certainly, the Global Fund for AIDS, TB, and malaria is a very important institution that the U.S. Government helps finance, but also receives financing from other countries in Asia. So we do look at those for -- also as a part of the G-8, we make our commitments known.

In terms of the epidemic, and we do have partnerships with all three countries, in terms of the epidemic, Asia is very interesting. There is an emerging epidemic there. In China, in particular, it's largely driven by injecting drug use and the Chinese Government has actually been quite enlightened in their work to really provide a comprehensive approach to HIV/AIDS and drug addiction. They provide methadone to help people get off of their drugs, so that they can be more adherent to their AIDS treatment. But certainly, it's a major epidemic emerging there, and we're partners in the fight.

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